In the last two decades, the political and economic situation in Zimbabwe has attracted significant public and media attention, a large proportion of which has been unfavourable. The tenuous political climate resulted in much of the international media coverage focusing on a narrow set of issues such as the political rhetoric and verbal barbs traded by the country’s political elite. The 2008 Global Political Agreement (GPA) between the country’s three main political parties presented some good news for a change. For many political commentators the GPA presented the country’s best last chance to resolve a decade of economic decline. Under Article 6 of the GPA, the parties to the GPA agreed to embark on an inclusive participatory process to develop a new constitution. This would resolve the Constitutional Crisis that has essentially plagued the country since the dissolution of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1963. This note takes a look at some of the key changes to the new constitution in general and the powers of the provinces in particular, and briefly assesses the implications of these changes.

From its Independence in 1980 until 2008, Zimbabwe was governed by the Lancaster House Constitution, a document that was hurriedly put together as part of the ceasefire agreement. Although the Lancaster House Constitution was amended 19 times, this was done a piecemeal manner and without any comprehensive national constitutional reform strategy. These amendments generally centralised power in the national government and galvanised the powers of the President. The President therefore had the authority to appoint and remove judges, commissioners, chiefs of the security services, Ministers, provincial governors and could unilaterally reconstitute various state bodies. In terms of provincial government, the handpicked governors were in effect mere extensions of the president’s office, representing the interests of central government in the 8 non-metropolitan provinces. Some have argued that this led to the marginalisation of certain provinces^[1] such as Matebeleland North and Matabeleland South.

Beyond the appointment of Provincial Governors and Traditional Chiefs, the Lancaster House Constitution (as amended 2007) was silent on the structure of subnational government. This was instead articulated in three Acts of parliament: the Urban Councils Act, the Rural District Councils Act and the Provincial Councils and Administration Act. The legislative framework thus created allowed for the responsible Minister appointed by the President, to intervene in local authority matters in the "interests of good governance and public administration”^[2]. Elected local authority officials were therefore subservient to a Presidential appointee.

Unlike the Lancaster House Constitution (as amended) the new Constitution of the Republic of Zimbabwe (2013) in principle adopts the devolution of powers from the national to the provincial and local governments as a fundamental value^[3] and the preamble to Chapter 14 on Provincial and Local Government states "there must be devolution of power and responsibilities to lower tiers of government in Zimbabwe”. Section 272 replaces Provincial Governors with Chairpersons selected from the political party with the largest number of National Assembly seats in the province concerned whilst the election of Mayors for the metropolitan provinces was left to Parliament to decide.

The new constitution has therefore made headway in devolving some power and responsibilities from central government, but there are a wide range of governance and institutional reforms that are still needed. Whilst the Zimbabwean Constitution (2013) accepts the principle of devolution, it fails to devolve any specific powers, leaving the definition of roles and responsibilities open to interpretation. The preamble to Chapter 14 also states that it is desirable to ensure "the preservation of national unity in Zimbabwe and the prevention of all forms of disunity and secessionism”. This could potentially be used to define a very narrow set of roles and responsibilities for local government based on the notion of preserving unity and preventing secession. In a 2012 interview broadcast on ZBC television, President Mugabe showed his hand on this matter. He was quoted as saying: "We don't want to divide the country into small pieces because (this) will cause disunity among our people. Those things are done in big countries not to a small country like ours. We once had this, under the Federation which included Southern Rhodesia [Zimbabwe], Northern Rhodesia [Zambia] and Nyasaland [Malawi]……..Some are talking about separating (the) Matebeleland region to become a country. That is impossible; we don't want that”^[4].

One of the main challenges associated with creating an effective and devolved system of government is defining clearly the roles and responsibilities of each sphere of government. Without providing for the powers to be devolved, such a system is easily undermined. Despite a constitutional shift in the right direction, in practical terms, it seems likely that there will be a continuation of the current situation in Zimbabwe, whereby political power remains centralized within the national government.

Written by Stephen Chisadza, DNA Economics

Notes:

[1] Mavedzenge, J. (2012) "Thematic analysis of Zimbabwe’s proposed Draft Constitution”, published by Freedom House.

[2] Section 80(1) of the Urban Councils Act (Chapter 29:15) and Section 158 (1) of the Rural District Councils Act (29:13)

[3] Section 3(2)(l)

[4] NewsDay (2012). "Mugabe rejects devolution”, available online here.